2023 - What I did today

I've been drawing a "plan" of the far end of the garden - where the veg is supposed to grow. It is literally drawn on the back of an envelope, a lovely big foolscap/A4 envelope that the RHS magazine came in this morning. When opened up, its A3 size - that's a lot of room for doodling.
Its funny how you can walk around an area hundreds of times but, when you try to put it down on paper from memory you struggle. Some bits are far too big, others too small. Ends of beds don't line up with other beds in a, for me, orderly fashion.
The object of the "plan" was to identify the bits that need clearing of brambles, couch grass and wire fence before they can be used to grow something edible. Some bits I may be able to cover with cardboard over winter but the bramble patches need serious work. If only the rain would stop..........

What you need off Santa veggieis is a mini drone with a camera to give you an aeriel view of the garden.You can then add whatever you like to the scaled photograph!

I have a friend who "drones" semi-professionally! He's done a couple of fly-overs of the garden and he did the roof and flew along the guttering, looking for blockages - which was useful. The problem with my garden is all the trees. You can't see the ground for the trees. Even in winter, you can't see much ground detail.

We tried to get a firm to do an aerial photo of ours. The drone operator seemed keen but his boss was cagey. We suffer from restricted airspace in all directions, Porton Down the chemical defence place, Boscombe Down Airfield and various military training schools, all of which are not happy with flying things with cameras in their vicinity. I'm sure some private bods fly their drones about but the professionals are very wary. The best picture of our back was when I cadged a ride in a cherry picker, now that was fun!

When I worked for the University in charge of their outdoor sports pitches I  always used to get a drone flyover at the end of the season so we could spot the main wear areas from above and prioritise the renovation of these areas during the out-season. Worked a treat!

Popped over the plot earlier and picked the Parsnips, going to London tomorrow to spend Christmas with our sons and my mum.

Sprouts about marble size, like last year!

Planted 50 crocus bulbs in the wild flower area.
Spent the rest of the day clearing the area in front of the utility room. Ready for scaffolding going back up for solar panel fitting.

Fitted the new batteryt o my car and lo- and- behodd, it's mobile again!  Started transporting and stacking logs but after 5 barrow loads my back started playing up. I have a half days trout fishing with my youngest son tomorrow (last fishing until end of March!) so decided discretion is the better part of valor and left the remaining woodpile and took Kato for a walk instead. We intend walking the perimeter of the trout water we fish tomorrow so I need to conserve my energy!

Managed a garden inspection - seems to have survived the wind apart from some small branches.
Added a big bag of coffee grounds, that I acquired yesterday, to the Hotbin. Its one of the best activators I've found - the bin will be steaming tomorrow.

I'll do a garden inspection today. I might take some pictures. Time marches on and all the jobs you left till winter are still not done and all the weeds are creeping to fill the few bare patches.

Yesterday I dug up my dahlias. I could have left them in probably but find it easier to start them off in a greenhouse when they start flowering that bit earlier. Also they were not all in the right places as they were smothering some roses. I had labelled 7 of them with their variety but when I looked for them, 3 of the labels were missing. I had used twine in October so either it perished very quickly or, more likely, that passing slugs or snails munched through it and the wind took them. Anyway I had to dig them all up again to make sure I didn't lose any.

Thursday I did sow my onions in trays - sturon, up-to-date and a sweet spanish. My bedfordshire champion packet was empty so I sent off for some more Yesterday and ordered some parsnip, tomato (orange banana) and some melons. Now I paid with a credit card so were they bought Yesterday or when I pay for them next month? May be I should have used a debit card.

Walked Kato, fished, walked Kato,shopped then cooked!